Colorado wheat farmers won’t see a record-breaking crop this year, but the 2011 harvest is still expected to be “above average.”
By the end of this weekend, the Colorado Association of Wheat Growers expects that farmers will have 90 percent of the state’s crop harvested.
Glenda Mostek is director of marketing at the organization. She says while Northern Colorado farmers saw adequate rain, Southern Colorado farmers have seen their crops damaged by drought.
“We had some farmers down there that got 20 bushels per acre, and felt quite luck to do that,” she said. “Yields vary, but that’s not going to be the area of the state that produces the most wheat this year by far.”
Julesberg farmers in the northeast part of the state are harvesting as much as 50 to 60 bushels per acre.
Overall, the USDA estimates a 36 bushel per acre average for Colorado farmers in 2011, almost 10 percent lower than last year’s record-breaking year.
